The Maan on the Bailout

Recent events have forced the Maan back on print, and the topic of my distress is the Financial Bailout. This so-called requirement will keep us from somehow collapsing as an economy and devolve into some kind of post apocalyptic wasteland where people are hunted for food and the only currency is water. Or at least that is what the proponents of this $700 million dollar waste of YOUR money and further tool to degrade the value of our dollar will have you believe. Up to this point, I thought that carte blance handouts were reserved for the opportunistic low income crowd in this country that have come to feel that you don't actually have to work to make a living. It seems Wall Street has caught on....

You see Wall Street is doing what the welfare fraud crowd has known for years...if you make yourself enough of a burden on society, eventually someone will pay up. And pay up we are..to the tune of $700 million dollars.

Back in the old days, you know, during the ideals of free market economy, companies that completely botched their business plan, abandoned all semblances of risk management and generally fucked away every last dollar in their pockets with over-inflated executive salaries and over the top stadium sponsorship deals (ok, they didn't have stadium naming rights in the old days, but you get my drift), met the fate of so many before: bankruptcy and extinction. And that was a GOOD thing. Companies with dangerous operating practices and sloppy balance sheets were replaced or bought and revamped into more lean, sensible versions of their predecessors, and despite a few tough years of adjusting, the economy was able to press on, with the memory of what not to do fresh in its mind.

But Senate and the administration has caved into the NOW crowd and taken all that necessary pain away, leaving none of the concerned parties with the welts of a financial thrashing that would teach them the lesson to never let this disaster happen ever again.

And the reasoning behind this package was nebulous. I almost laughed out loud when I heard one newscaster say, "Imagine if one day you went to use your credit card and your credit card company had shut it down?" Holy shit! What the hell would we do then? We might actually have to spend the money we actually EARN instead of spending tomorrow's dollars today, money there is no guarantee we will have. What a catastrophe! I would actually have to go to Target instead of the Mall once in awhile, and even then I'd have to pass on a few wants to make sure I got what I needed..like a ...like a budget or something ::gasp!!::

Some would say our credit dependence and abuse is what has got us to where we are in the first place...just charge up your cards, get a 100% LTV mortgage that will double in five years, leverage all the equity in the house you have owned for 10 years to payoff cards, then charge them up again...got to have that 50" plasma TV even if I can't really afford it. And we don't save a dime for the rainy day either. I am always (or actually less so as it happens more frequently) shocked when one of my low income tenants paying $600 a month gets evicted and when I show up they are loading their 50" TV, DirectTV satelitte dish, Xbox 360 with a suitcase full of games, three bikes and enormous wardbrobes of clothes into their Ford Expeditions. And the reason they couldn't pay? They got hurt, had no insurance, had to pay a $1000 medical bill and didn't get paid for time they were out. Nothing that a 26" standard tube TV with basic cable, bike from the thrift shop and used reasonable car wouldn't have fixed. And you can translate this example into any wealth class by simply raising the ante on the what they haves vs. what they should have boughts.

We have been programmed to spend what we don't have, and the credit card companies and mortgage backers that have irresponsibly let us do it are now paying the price...but they are not really, are they? Of course not, because here comes the government and the FED dishing out all our hard earned dollars to dig them out of the hole they created by unconscionable business practices instead of letting those companies be 'evicted' like my irresponsible tenants and be replaced by smaller hungrier companies with sounder financial principals. And one can only hope that money goes where it will actually have an impact, and not into the next contract renewal for the Carolina Panthers stadium naming rights or a signing bonus for the next jackass CEO.