America listens!

Well whaddya know!  Just hours after discussing how the household debt of American taxpayers is killing the economy, this news report comes out stating that borrowing by consumers dropped for the first time in 10 years.

Straight from the report: The annual rate of consumer borrowing fell 3.7% last month. Credit card borrowing decreased at an annual rate of 0.8% while non-revolving borrowing, including student and auto loans, contracted by 5.4%.  Economists had expected borrowing to have increased by $5 billion in August, according to a poll conducted by Briefing.com.

Of course much of that can be attributed to the economic crisis we are inundated with 24 hours a day by every media outlet in the nation, coupled with rising gas prices, skyrocketing unemployment rates, and outrageous mortgage payments as a result of ARMs given to low-income households.

Nevertheless, if it took a financial crisis to get Americans to wise up to the evil’s of debt, we can all see this as a silver lining to the current financial woes we face today.

Hopefully once the upswing comes around, be it in 5 years or 50, Americans will have learned their lesson and won’t fall into the trappings of credit once more.

Will the real John McCain please stand up?

Not less than a month ago, Senator John McCain spoke about his dislike of negative campaigning at a rally in Minnesota.

His wife, Ms. Cindy McCain has long concurred as well.

Yes as soon as Senator McCain began dropping in the polls over the past week, what did his campaign do?

Nothing short of institute a slew of attacks aimed at Senator Barack Obama.

Calling Senator Obama a liar.

Claiming that Senator Obama pals around with terrorists.

Stating Obama voted to cut off funding for troops and is not ready to lead.

Say it ain’t so John!!!

Mortgage loan forgiven for suicidal gesture

In all of the national hubbub of the subprime mortgage crisis, taxpayers have been quick to place blame at greedy lending institutions, excessive homebuilding, mortgage underwriters, investment firms that securitized subprime mortgages, credit rating agencies, and mortgage brokers. All rightfully deserve a share of the blame.

However, taxpayers are not pointing the finger at another primary problem in the financial crisis that has taken hold of our economy. Themselves.

Stories such as this where a Ohio-native’s home loan was forgiven by Fannie Mae after she shot herself because her home was being foreclosed are despicable.

Who forced Ms. Addie Polk to take out a 30-year mortgage at a 6.375 percent interest rate?  Why did Ms. Polk go into debt outside of her means?  Better yet why must responsible taxpayers who took out mortgages for homes within their means, such as you and I, be forced to subsidize the idiotic behavior of the Ms. Polk’s of the world through the bailout program?

What kind of message does this send?  Americans can go out and spend themselves into massive debt, only to have it eliminated by tugging at the heart strings of corporate America?

Of course politicians and the government won’t point the finger at stupid Americans for living in massive debt.  Why?  Because these same stupid Americans also represent voting Americans who can keep politicians in office.  Thus the stupidity is essentially ignored, thereby indirectly encouraged, and the problem continues on ad infinitum.

Until our fellow citizens take a long hard look in the mirror before taking out lines of credit for the maintenance of lifestyles that their income cannot support, this economic crisis currently plaguing our nation cannot be fully rectified.

I say the Ms. Polk’s of the world need to reign in the spending and either purchase smaller houses or simply rent an abode.

Home ownership is a priviledge for the affluent, not a right for all Americans.  Somewhere along the way this message was distorted by society.

The blind doth protest

A soon-to-be released movie about blindness, aptly titled “Blindness,” is not receiving rave reviews from the National Federation of the Blind.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the NFB, has lambasted the movie as portraying the blind as “incompetent, filthy, vicious, and depraved. They are unable to do even the simplest things like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all of the same things that sighted people do.”

I haven’t personally seen this movie. However, I’ve seen the trailer, and I have read some background information about the plot.

The movie (adapted from a novel) is about a virus that overtakes the citizens of a city and suddenly makes them lose their vision. The movie shows how society falls apart in the wake of this destructive disease.

The intelligent viewer understands that the movie is not attempting to portray blind people in a negative light. Instead the filmmaker shows how society falls apart after a lethal virus quickly and suddenly takes over a city’s population. If an entire area succumbs to any type of epidemic that requires a quarantine (such as in this flick) and exercises such damage on human beings, one can assume that widespread chaos and hysteria would ensue. This is no slight to the blind. The disease in the movie could have portrayed the loss of any of the five senses and the result would have remained constant.

The problem here is not the movie itself, but the overabundance of political correctness that society faces on a day-to-day basis, which is getting awfully burdensome and tiring. The NFB is quick to raise an issue where no issue truly exists. Everybody is quick to take offense for the silliest of reasons today, all in the name of political correctness – which is the real virus that is plaguing American society.

If the blind aren’t happy with this movie, they simply shouldn’t go see it.

Uh-oh, will the PC police arrest me for that?

Bailout Bill Boss

As a fiercely proud Indian-American I take every opportunity afforded to me to celebrate when my fellow countrymen achieve upward mobility in the world (except for Bobby Jindal).

Hence when Mr. Neel Kashkari, whose parents hail from Kashmir, India, was selected to be in charge of the $700 billion rescue effort of American’s financial institutions I thought I would be tickled with joy.

However, upon further review of Mr. Kashkari’s non-cultural background, I find myself disillusioned by this selection.

From a 30,000 foot overview Mr. Kashkari appears to have the credentials to handle such an important responsibility, with Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering (but what specific field is unknown to all at this point) and a Wharton MBA.

However, upon deeper investigation one learns that Mr. Kashkari previously served as Assistant Secretary at the Treasury Department and as an adviser to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Yes the same Mr. Paulson that helped get us in this financial mess in the first place. The same Mr. Paulson who originally requested $700 billion in a three-page plan that allowed him to allocate money as he saw fit, without any congressional oversight or judicial review.

Something didn’t smell right then.

Further investigation shows that Mr. Kashkari was formerly a Vice President at Goldman Sachs where Mr. Paulson was previously the chief executive.

Yes the same Goldman Sachs that helped get us in this financial mess in the first place. The same Goldman Sachs that placed investor money into hedge funds that were heavy into mortgage-based securities with a strong foothold in subprime mortgages. All the while the firm was using its corporate money to short such securities in an effort to make considerable profit. Investors lost money, but the firm made money.

Something didn’t smell right then.

So American taxpayers are being forced to entrust their hard-earned money in a 35-year old hotshot who worked at a company that helped exacerbate the subprime mortgage crisis and for a man who oversaw the tanking of the American economy from both the inside and the outside because of said crisis?

So American taxpayers are being forced to entrust their hard-earned money with two men who surely found themselves on the receiving end of tens of millions in bonus money paid to executives by Goldman Sachs over the past 10 years. Now these former executives find themselves in charge of doling out money that can benefit their former employer directly. Talk about conflict of interest. Could Goldman Sachs be looking for a return on investment on that bonus money right about now?

Something still doesn’t smell right.