Frustration

I know, I know.... I haven't blogged in a long time! What is my excuse you ask? Well, to be honest, I have been so frustrated by what I see in the news and by what our government is doing that I just haven't really wanted to blog. Do you know the feeling of knowing that you are right about something and just don't understand how anyone could believe something different than you? That is how I have been feeling for the last couple of months.

These are just a few questions I am trying to find answers to:
1. How can so many people blindly follow the leaders of our government?
2. How can so many people truly think that more spending is going to fix our problems?
3. How can so many people think that bigger government is the answer?
4. Why is everyone blaming the likes of AIG and so many other companies for the crisis we are in when this recession is hurting the global economy?
5. Why isn't anyone blaming credit card companies for charging compounding interest rates and on top of that have the capability to increase those rates at anytime? Talk about "predatory" lending by mortgage companies, where are the claims of predatory lending by credit card companies?

As you can tell I have a lot on my mind! Can anyone help me out with these questions? I am open to suggestions and answers! As most of you probably know, I work in the lending industry, so I follow all of the events about my industry very closely. I have constantly been hearing about how banks are not lending or that they have just started lending a little bit more. It is Obama's plan to buy "toxic" mortgage assets from banks to "allow banks to lend more!" Please hear it from me... banks are truly lending!! You just have to be current on your current mortgage, have low debt, have provable income, and have decent credit! Banks are swamped with doing loans for people that meet this criteria. So, when I hear that banks aren't lending or that Obama and the Treasury Department want to have banks lend a lot more, I can only come to one conclusion, that they want banks to once again do loans for people who are "risky" customers. So... the cycle begins again!! Once banks start taking risks again, and the customers stop paying their mortgage, no one is going to remember that the government encouraged banks to lend more, they are just going to remember that the banks did these "risky" loans in the first place! Make any sense to you? It is the exact same thing that happened that got us into this mess in the first place!

A Little Humor

When I watch the news, I get absolutely tired and worn out from hearing all of the negative news about the economy and job less and it goes on and on. It seems like there is a pretty good chance that things are going to get a lot worse before they get any better.
In the meantime all we can do is pray........and.....try to find humor wherever we can find it! Ever wonder what all of the big name companies are going to look like once this crisis is over?

Well... Here is a pretty good idea.

Keith Olbermann

There have been so many things that I wish that I had time to blog about. I watched Obama's speech the other night... Needless to say, I wasn't impressed at all. Did anyone else feel like that? Did it seem like the same ol' promises from his election? First let me say that I do think that Obama is a great speech giver, besides the fact that he can never take his eyes off his script...except when he says, "I get it."

Just after the speech I had an idea... President Obama stated that we will all need to make sacrifices to get through these hard times, himself included. That gave me the idea that Obama should volunteer to give up his salary until this recession is over. I would completely respect him if he did that. That, my friends, is leading by example. One of my friends suggested that Bush should give up his pension because this recession is all his fault. I seriously had to chuckle at that thought. I am tired of hearing that everything that has happened these last few years is all his fault! Nobody talks about Bush and the Republicans tried to regulate Fannie and Freddie and subprime lending. In the 90's and the beginning of this decade, the Republicans tried to tighten guidelines on "subprime" people. Do you know what happened? They were called racist!

Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are a couple of people we can point fingers at for not regulating the subprime market. I have often stated that I hate hearing about the banks being the only ones blamed for this crisis. Finally there is some fighting back! I saw a headline this morning from Politico, Bankers to Obama: Stop trashing us. Did banks take risks on investments? Sure they did. But most banks didn't originate a ton of subprime loans themselves. As this article suggested, the majority were done by brokers. For instance, Countrywide was the largest lender in the U.S. At the time I worked there, 1 in 4 homes had Countrywide mortgages! A whopping 25%!!! Get this... Less than 3% of their portfolio, that they originated themselves were subprime!

Okay... change of topic... the topic that is in my subject line, because I know that most of your eyes are glazing over now. After Obama's speech, Lousianna's governor, Jindal, gave the Republican response. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann said something that really ticked me off. I don't know why MSNBC still has this guy working for them!

Just as he was waiting for Jindal to walk onto the podium, he whispered, "Oh God" under his breath...



What a worthless..............

Already Breaking Promises

Do you what sickens me the most about this big spending bill that was just passed today? No one really knows what is in it. Did you know that some congressman and senators didn't even have a chance to look through the bill before they signed it? No... I am serious!
Sure the news has reported a little bit of details here and there but how much do we actually know about what is in the bill? Nearly $900 billion dollars is being spent and on what?? Government building! You might being tired of hearing this and might even being wanting to click to another blog by now... But doesn't it concern you at all about what is being done?
First the Republicans were trying to allow the public to view the bill for 48 hours prior to it being voted on, but the Dems didn't allow it. Do you think that Obama read through the bill before he signed it?

Watch this video. You can watch the whole thing, but first fast forward to the good part starting at one minute.



So what has happened to Obama's stand against pork? What has happened to full disclosure? Today we have learned that since the negotiations of this bill started, Obama hasn't even had a chance to read through the bill himself before he signed it.

How many people have drank the kool-aid and actually think that this spending bill will actually work? If you think it will work, I respect your opinion, but would like to ask you one question... How do you know it will work? Because the news says so? Or is it because politicians say so? Since the majority of our representatives haven't read the bill and heck...even President Obama hasn't read it, how do they know it will work? Honestly, we really don't know what is completely in this bill, and unfortunately, we are going to be paying for it for a very...very...very long time!