POLITICS AND NATURE

Angry e-mails read on the news and across the blogosphere castigate the president for trying to save people from themselves. It was their own fault. Caveat Emptor. Buyer beware. Look before you leap. Take control of your lives and pay your bills. Others worked three jobs to afford a home and they will not ask for a bailout. These people are shiftless and lazy and they are getting special treatment from the feds. One more arrow in the amazingly liberal presidential quiver. How could he betray the conservative principles which won him less votes than Al Gore and 52 % of the vote while running the nation in the midst of war. Hmmmmm.

Presidential contender Chris Dodd, Democratic senator from Connecticut, explained on Sunday, Dec. 2, that if you take one block and have one foreclosure, it reduces the value of each of the other homes by $5,000. The take no action administration has proved, once again, the difficulty of pondering the worth of corporate America and confusing it with true capitalism.

Make no mistake, sub-prime lending is an important asset to the economy and has helped many regular people buy homes, cars, and pay for things. This is good for manufacturers, many in China, but also for the public at large. As a finance manager, I spent much of my time as a credit counselor explaining the importance for individuals taking out loans for large ticket items, meaning cars.

The solution the administration has worked on actually seems wise. It provides parameters for individuals, perhaps into the hundreds of thousands, the president said up to a million, who got taken into loans they could not understand. There is a certain amount of trust most people have in major credit organizations. And it is these organizations taking the actions to protect their own interests with a bit of prodding from the White House. It is not a movement towards socialism expanding outward. It is just one more example of the "free market" gone astray and needing some reigning in. It requires lenders to act responsibly. Seems logical to me. Maybe the man on Pennsylvania is learning a bit about 21st century economics and reality.