For a nice time-line explanation of the events leading up to the current "crisis" click here. It's interesting how they kept denying that there were problems and then all of a sudden it was impending catastrophe. And we're supposed to believe what they are telling us now?
Show Me the Money
I really want to see some actual numbers and figures about the supposed financial catastrophe and "credit crisis." No one seems to want to give us, the taxpayers, any kind of details about who, where, what, when and how all of this money 'disappeared'. I pretty much understand a lot of that just from the bits of research I've done about it, but I can't find any actual numbers anywhere. Somebody needs to show me exactly how many and which banks and where they are that are on the verge of collapse and closing up credit. So far, we've just been told that they need this huge amount of money but they don't give us any real examples of where that amount comes from. I don't like all that secrecy and predictions of disaster without much evidence. It's too much like the climate change alarmism. I'm a skeptic.
All these places have been "cooking their books" apparently. Well, show me the money trail and where it disappeared. Don't just try to coerce and scare me into complying with this insane bailout without proving exactly why it's needed.
The Mexican Connection
I don't have anything against Mexicans, just illegal immigrants who exploit our system without really contributing to it. I've noticed that there aren't so many Mexicans around anymore. Gee, I wonder why. Well, let me tell you. The construction jobs dried up so they just packed up and left, often leaving houses that they were able to "buy" with money from banks who didn't seem to care that they weren't legal citizens. There is a house down the road from us that was abandoned by the Mexicans who "bought" it. There was always a Mexican flag flying from their porch, so that's how we know they were Mexicans. Okay, I don't know who financed their house, but now it's been sitting empty ever since the housing bubble burst and the construction jobs disappeared. The Mexicans were only here to make a quick dollar, and when those quick dollars stopped they left. How many other houses and mortgages have been abandoned all over the country in this same way? So much for Bank of America's courting the illegals with credit cards and whatever other credit they gave them. Why should I have to pay for that?
Also, two illegal immigrants are in custody suspected in the slaying of a 21 year old Alabama woman who was here on business and disappeared last week.
Lots of "Told You So"s
I know that of which I speak, and I've been saying it all along. It's just that no one was listening because they always think, "What can some dumb redneck housewife in Tennessee know about anything?" Okay, well, I've been predicting this mess for a while and even have offered up some great free advice to any interested, serious journalists on a big expose that probably would have won them a freakin' Pulitzer Prize or something if they recognized it and pursued it. Hey, I think I should get some kind of prize for seeing this coming even though most people weren't paying attention. So much for all the supposedly smart people who are screaming, "Why didn't anyone tell us?" Duh!! If a stupid redneck housewife in Tennessee can figure it out, then why couldn't they? Stupid is as stupid does, and I hope that all those supposedly superior people are figuring out just how stupid they really are.
September 2008
January 2008
February 2, 2007
February 19, 2007
The House Defies Pelosi
Apparently many Democrats, as well as Republicans, chose to listen to their constituents and vote no on the current bailout plan. Looks like all of Pelosi's, Dodd's, Reid's, and Frank's yelling and threatening didn't work after all. Maybe the House Republicans' plan should be the one that is pushed. Instead of a bailout at taxpayer expense, it is an insurance set-up like the FDIC which protects our bank deposits from bank failures. The House Republicans want the financial institutions to pay premiums into this new insurance that will protect people's other types of assets that are used by banks as their "currency" between themselves.
Stock Market Crash
Well, yeah, it's gonna hurt a bunch of people. But sometimes it takes really hard lessons to learn what's right and wrong. I'm not happy that the small amount of money I have invested in what was explained to me as "conservative, low-risk" funds is probably going to disappear. Well, it would be nice to at least be able to recover my initial deposits, but I knew full-well that these funds were not insured and that they might disappear someday. And that's why the money I put in them is small enough that losing it isn't going to ruin my life. I feel a little sorry for those who invested all their savings in the stock market, but then again, they should have known better.
One of my best, against-the-experts-advice decisions was to purchase a "whole-life" insurance policy in 1993. Every month since then I've sent in my little premium, and slowly but surely it has been growing at an interest rate that is better than most other savings since then. I'm pretty sure that my rate can't fall below prime - it never has although the rates have been up and down a lot over the years. Now I have to wonder how many of those "experts" who advised against whole life insurance have lost all their money in other types of savings? Well, this is an example of being conservative really paying off. I just don't want to gamble with so much money, and that is exactly what the stock market seems to have become. An institutionalized casino with all the house advantages of any other casino. Sorry, but even an adorable little baby can't convince me to waste my money on investing in things that don't look too secure:
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